


Refuge

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Four Times Trouble [16]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Doppelganger, Earth-X (CW DC TV Universe), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:34:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26838313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: “That’s my sister,” he murmurs. “There’s a world that breaks my sister that badly—a world where the only way I could keep her safe was to leave her for decades."“That wasn’t here,” Barry says. He doesn’t know what else to say. “You were there for Lisa when she needed you. That’s been your one constant, always.”“But not his!”
Relationships: Barry Allen/Leonard Snart/Earth-X Leonard "Leo" Snart/Ray Terrill
Series: Four Times Trouble [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706920
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Refuge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheRedHarlequin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRedHarlequin/gifts).



> Several people have asked about Lisa - what she's doing, how she's taking this - but TheRedHarlequin asked to see Lisa-X and...oh Harle, you wanted fluff and I angsted. I swear I'll write a cute family outing with the OT4 and the Lisas soon!

Barry stares in shock. He hadn’t fully believed Leo when he’d explained why he and Ray had to return to Earth-X in such a rush. “Lisa?”

Lisa-X stands in the middle of the room, fresh from breaching over. She’s curled in on herself defensively, eyeing them with unmistakable fear. “You’re sure I’ll be safe here, Leo?” 

He drapes his parka around her, hiding her torn dress. “Yes, you’ll be safe,” he promises. “None of these people will hurt you.”

“So what’s your story?” Len’s voice is shockingly soft. Barry’s heart goes out to him. He was always soft on Lisa, and alternate Lisas appear to be no exception. “Gonna guess you weren’t openly part of the resistance, or you’d be in rags, not riches.”

Lisa-X reaches up to play with a strand of her hair, but her hand stops near her neck rather than continue up to her lopsided pixie cut. Barry studies her short hair and the seemingly-automatic motion playing out in midair. “You wore a wig,” he realizes. “Let me guess. A blonde wig?” His thoughts go back to the very first time he and Cisco met Lisa—blonde wig, bashful act. Was that how this Lisa survived?

She nods and lets her hand drop back by her side. “Yeah. Resistance from the inside was easier if I looked the part.”

Leo beckons her to the sofa and sits down at her side. Ray gives them a shockingly wide berth, his eyes soft. Barry can’t make sense of that. Maybe it will come out in Lisa-X’s story. 

Our of courtesy to her, Barry and Len sit separate from each other and well away from her. She seems to need the space. Leo gives him a brief, grateful glance before turning back to his sister and rubbing her shoulder. “How much do you want to tell them, Lise? I can run them through what you were doing for the resistance…even what happened when we were young, if you’re not able to tell it.”

“No!” she snaps, then draws in a deep breath. “No, I want to own my story, Leo. It’ll be the first time I have, for as long as I can remember.”

Len makes a little wounded sound. He doesn’t say anything, though, which Barry thinks is probably for the best. If Lisa-X needs prompted, he doubts she’ll want it to be from either of them. 

After a moment, Lisa-X murmurs to Leo, “You tell what happened when we were little. I don’t remember much of it.” He nods and squeezes her tight. The way she burrows her head into his shoulder is more vulnerable than Barry has ever seen their Lisa with anyone. 

“Well.” Leo glances across, mostly to Barry and Len. “I told you the timeline of the invasion—landing on the coast when I was in my early teens, occupying Central City around the time I came of age. This all happened when Lisa was a child. Her mother and mine were close—they connected because of Lewis, but ultimately both of them left him and leaned on each other for parenting help. When the invasion first started, before it reached Central City, my mother told Lisa’s mother to be smart about how she raised Lisa. We all knew the Nazi beliefs at that point, and while my mother and I had no hope of quiet resistance, Lisa did.”

“So you grew up disguised as the perfect Aryan woman?” Barry concludes, addressing Lisa-X directly. She glances up at him furtively and nods. 

“For as long as I could remember, putting in my contacts and making sure my wig was secure were as much a part of getting ready for the day as brushing my teeth. It worked. Everyone who knew me prior to that—I was four, when we started that—thought I was young enough that my hair had changed color naturally, and the ‘perfect’ shade of blue wasn’t so far off from my natural eye color to be startling.”

“And then you worked your way up into Nazi society to resist from the inside,” Barry realizes. It’s genius, and just as dangerous as open rebellion. Had she been discovered, her life would have been forfeit. 

Lisa-X nods. “The Nazis don’t have a great deal of interest in women beyond their use as bearers of strong Aryan children. I could—and did—play with that expectation. I never met directly with the resistance—we had a dead-drop system, they would leave me a mission like…oh…‘distract so-and-so for twenty minutes so we can sneak into his office and get blueprints,’ that kind of thing. If the break-in was discovered, I wasn’t blamed, because of course, I was just a woman eager to talk to a war hero.” She rolls her eyes. 

Barry can’t follow how that led to the emergency that drew Leo and Ray away. Evidently, Len can. “You played the part too well,” he deduces. “If you never met with the resistance directly…”

Judging by her shudder, he’s right on target. “They’re furious. All of them have lost people, many of them have been appallingly mistreated. Even with leaders like Leo and Ray and General Schott…some of the resistance members just want to hurt the way they’ve been hurt, and I made an appealing target.”

“They were going to kill her,” Leo says coldly. His eyes turn flinty-hard. Barry, who’s never before had cause to be afraid of him, suddenly fears for the lives of those resistance fighters. “Execute her without trial, where she stood. Thankfully, when she mentioned me, someone had the good sense to get in contact with me for confirmation.”

A sob tears its way free of Lisa-X’s throat. “I hadn’t seen my brother in decades,” she says, hurriedly drying her eyes. “And to be reunited like that?”

Leo’s expression softens instantly and he pulls her into his arms. “I’m here. Oh, shh-shh-shh, I’m here.”

While Leo rocks and soothes Lisa, Ray turns to them. “We need a place for her to stay—somewhere safe, away from the mess on Earth-X right now. Leo’s request, not hers, so she might be a bit…choosy, about who she stays with. Even after what happened, even with how shaken she is, she still wants to help.”

Len nods slowly. “I think I know someone who’ll take good care of her.”

Twenty minutes later, their door swings open to admit a wide-eyed Lisa. “So this is the new place,” she says, eyeing the photos on the wall. “I’m a little hurt that you haven’t invited anyone over for a formal housewarming party…oh.” She stops in the doorway to the living room, staring at Leo and Lisa-X. “Oh, this is why you called me over.”

“Lisa, meet Lisa,” Len says, nodding at Lisa-X’s huddled form.

Slowly, Lisa-X uncurls and stares up at her doppelganger. She dries the last of her tears and manages, in a tone shockingly similar to what Barry’s heard Lisa use to deflect, she says, “Damn, I’m a badass on this Earth.”

Lisa’s default, slightly mocking expression doesn’t change, but Barry sees a flicker of softness in her eyes. “Why don’t you explain what brings you here?”

While Lisa-X and Leo recount their tale a second time, Barry steps out to get a drink. It’s both for himself—he really needs some water—and to let Len know it’s okay to leave the room. Sure enough, Len joins him within two minutes. His eyes are wide and distant like he’s not actually seeing the kitchen.

“Hey.” Barry settles beside him and hands him a glass of ice water. Len takes it with only the barest of glances at him. “That was a lot, wasn’t it?” 

He thinks of the multiple Irises he’s met. All of them had his best friend’s strength, her courage, but the differences threw him every time. Not having met Iris-X, the closest he can come to what Len might be feeling right now was when he helped Iris-2 grieve her father. That helplessness, the ache at knowing that this doppelganger feels exactly the same way a loved one would but wants someone else’s comfort, is crushing.

Len sets the water aside and starts tapping his fingers against the counter, a beat he taps out frequently but not from anything Barry recognizes. “That’s my sister,” he murmurs. “There’s a world that breaks my sister that badly—a world where the only way I could keep her safe was to leave her for _decades_.” 

“That wasn’t here,” Barry says. He doesn’t know what else to say. “You were there for Lisa when she needed you. That’s been your one constant, always.” 

“But not his!” Len jerks away from the counter. Barry flinches away. Len doesn’t mean to scare him with how suddenly he moves—he does this when he feels trapped, and has done for as long as Barry’s known him. Barry needs to stop taking it as an insult. (That doesn’t make it hurt less when it feels like Len can’t get away from him fast enough.) “That, in there, it’s tearing Leo up inside, and I hate that I _give a fuck_ now.”

Barry doesn’t have any answers to give, aside from a too-quiet, “She’s here now. Both of them are.”

Len looks up, shocked, and hurries over to pull Barry into his arms. Barry hates that he melts immediately into Len’s arms. Worse is the way tears prickle the backs of his eyes as soon as he’s given comfort. He’s so weak, when all it takes to set him off is Len’s tendency to pull away… “Scarlet, sweetheart, hey. I’m sorry.”

Barry forces himself not to sound too pathetic. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter. Leo needs us both in there.”

Len makes little hushing sounds and keeps rocking him back and forth. “It does matter, Scarlet. I shouldn’t have done that. Your tender heart is all full of Lisa-X’s story, and for me to lash out at you just because you’re here…no, it matters, Scarlet. Those feelings matter too.”

Barry sniffles and clenches his fingers in Len’s shirt. They should be giving this comfort to Leo and Lisa-X. He shouldn’t be taking it for himself like this. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Len soothes. “This is coming so quick after what happened yesterday, no wonder you’re overwhelmed. It’s okay to take a minute, Scarlet.” Quieter, he adds, “I think we both need a moment to just…hold each other.”

It’s the closest Len will come to asking to be held—Barry knows that. It’s also exactly what he needs. He makes a little grateful sound and stays pressed against Len’s chest, listening to his quiet, slightly ragged breaths. 

After what feels like hours to Barry but is probably in the range of five minutes, they step apart. Barry straightens his shirt and avoids looking Len in the eye. “We should probably go back to them, make sure they’re still holding up okay.”

Len gives him an odd look but doesn’t argue. “Guess so. But remember, once Lisa-X is comfortable and safe, we have a conversation to start with the other two.”

Upon returning to the living room, they find the two Lisas side-by-side. Leo is at his sister’s side, watching cautiously as they chat. 

“So on this Earth I’m a motorcycle-riding badass with a gold gun?” Lisa-X asks in delight. 

“Oh, well, I dunno, I think ‘member of the resistance taking down Nazis by using their own sexist beliefs against them’ is pretty badass,” Lisa replies, grinning. “But also…yeah, I am.”

“Be careful with the Rogues,” Leo cautions. His hand twitches in midair as though he wants to touch his sister and is holding back. “As my sister knows them, they’re either resistance members who wouldn’t be thrilled to see her, Nazi lackeys in…I think two cases that I know of…or, in some particularly unfortunate cases, dead.” He's seen all of the Rogues in passing, but he's schooled his reactions so that Barry doesn't have any guesses about who's who. That might not be a good thing now; naming names might help keep Lisa-X from crossing paths with anyone who would alarm her.

“Don’t worry.” Lisa squeezes her doppelganger’s hand. “I’ll take good care of you. You’ll have some time to rest and wait for things to calm down on your Earth, somewhere people aren’t out for your blood.”

Lisa-X nods slowly and scoots a little closer to Lisa. “I look forward to it,” she admits. With a bashful glance around the room, she admits, “I’ve lived in fear ever since I was a kid. Not, not comparable to what my brother endured, but...real. It’s going to be strange to be on a world where I don’t have to look over my shoulder all the time.”

Lisa gets to her feet and helps Lisa-X do the same. Together, they wander toward the door. At the last second, Lisa-X glances back. “And I’ll be able to see Leo whenever I want?”

Leo makes a sharp sound in his throat. Lisa nods and squeezes her doppelganger’s hand. “You bet you will.”

Once they leave, Leo huddles into Ray’s arms and murmurs, “All these years…we could never have contact, I didn’t want to draw suspicion down on her. The thought that she’s just a short walk away is…”

Barry perches on his other side and pets Leo’s shoulder. “You’ll have to take her around the city, show her everything that was most impressive to you,” he suggests. “I mean, I think Lisa will show her the city, like we did for you, but…you’re the one who knows what’s most fascinating to someone from your Earth.”

Leo nods and lays his hand over Barry’s. “Thank you for helping me find her a safe place to stay—thank you both.” He looks up at Len, who immediately drops his gaze. He doesn’t do well at making eye contact when things are this emotional. Barry feels torn between the two of them, so he gestures Len down on his other side. 

Once all four of them are on the sofa, cuddling or clasping hands, Barry asks, “So what would help everyone feel…I dunno, safe? Able to get out of our heads for a little while?”

“Can we just stay here a little while longer?” Leo checks, pulling Barry closer against his side. 

“Yeah,” Barry agrees, letting himself be pulled. Like Len reminded him, they do need to have a talk, but it can wait. Right now, none of them are in the mood for it. “I can see why you need that.”

“Thank you,” Leo murmurs one more time. Barry and Ray each give him a kiss. Len, who’s further away, just squeezes his hand, but from Len, that small gesture says plenty.


End file.
